Contrapasso
by bugsfic
Summary: Choices tried out, moments relived, until the final persona is put on.


_I had said that I wasn't going to write 'that fic' for Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter, but I wanted to write something to thank all those readers who encouraged and supported my other fics, Chiaroscuro and Ring of Fire, especially the incomparable Aussiegirl41. It's not necessary to read the other stories to read this one, but it can give it more depth. _

_xox_

The prisoner stood straight, chin level, eyes appearing to be focused on the steel door, but really inhabiting a place far from the cell, a place green and open, breathing in air filled with the sun's heat and the earth's depth. Anywhere but the eight foot square concrete box that she was in now.

The cell door's small slot window opened. The guard barked: "Starling, git to the back...Hands flat on the wall."

She complied but there was the familiar tension between them; the guard knew who was in charge here.

"You have a visitor, Starling."

She didn't reply. The door remained closed.

"It's a doctor. He's gonna talk to you."

She finally spoke. "I've got nothin' to say."

Another voice overtook the guard's, shutting him out. "Ms. Starling, I believe that you have important things to say. I'd be happy to hear you."

Her lip curled in a sneer; contempt was the first emotion that she showed. She turned away which earned another order from the guard. "Face the door!"

Slowly, she resumed the position. The two men spoke in hushed tones outside the door and finally the guard's voice rose: "I don't think it's a good idea-"

The smooth tone of the doctor overlapped the guard's, but not high enough for Clarice to hear. She eased a step closer to the door. Suddenly it swung open and she froze.

The man filled the entryway, solid as the impenetrable door. There was no escape.

She gave him a shy country girl smile. "How do you do?"

He tipped his head in greeting, but kept his gaze level with hers. "I am well. How are you?"

"Could be better, but can't complain," she said but took a step back so the distance between them remained the same as he entered the cell. It was not a retreat. It was a tactic.

He gave an appreciative smile. "I am Doctor Hannibal Lecter."

"Don't suppose you're here to check on that pain in my neck."

"I could if you wish."

Her eyes shifted toward the door. The viewing window was still open. "They don't let anyone touch me."

"I doubt you want anyone to touch you."

"Startin' already, are you?"

He clasped his hands at his waist. "Starting what?"

"Trying to figure me out. Analyze what made me what I am."

"What are you?"

"I'm one of the few female serial killers..." Her smile turned sly. "At least one of the few caught. Pro'ly plenty of women doin' it, just not found out."

"Interesting theory." He quirked an eyebrow. "How are women doing it?"

She lay her hands flat on the wall as the guard had instructed. "They poison. Pussy kills."

"Not like you. You gut men like sheep at slaughter. You give them a single shot to the base of the neck."

She didn't respond. He decided that she had beautiful eyes.

He was accustomed to interviewing violent women, the rare killers in that gender. Often, they tried seduction, even those who hated men-particularly those. Their disdain meant they saw men as weak, ruled by their dicks and easily manipulated. But he could see this unique woman was using another type of seduction on him.

He was a man of great control and yet in these first few minutes with Clarice Starling, he wanted to spirit her away, to make her his lifelong enigma.

Her gaze shifted fractionally toward the door. She could read his thoughts and for the first time since he entered the cell, he was afraid. Yes, let's kill the guard. Let's slip through the shadows of the prison corridors. Let's run and run and run. And Clarice Starling kills another man, slicing him from the base of his throat to his groin, exposing his heart on a wave of red. But at least he would be her last victim, of that he was sure.

He made one step, blocking the view through the cell door's window. She smiled again in approval.

His lips found the highest plane of her cheekbone. Her breathing quickened, a heated course on his cheek. He stilled, watching for any sign that she couldn't continue.

"H..." she mused, her mouth brushing the single letter along his chin.

"Yes, Clarice."

"Just makin' sure it's you." Her eyes were still the most beautiful he'd ever seen, even as they searched his, as though looking in a mirror for a familiar face.

He rolled back to his side of their new bed, the one which would be their last. He needed distance between their bodies if they were going to talk. "Who else would I be?"

"One of the other identities that you've been...You will be."

"I told you. No matter what the role, I never lose myself."

Her eyelids closed and the curtain dropped on the vividly dressed stage.

The car trunk smelled of tool oil, moldy leather and fuel fumes. Her bindings were too tight to find a comfortable position. With the duct tape over her mouth, she could only breath through her nose, taking in the noxious odors again and again. But worse of all was the darkness, closing tighter and tighter around her, more choking than the bindings.

The lid screamed open and now she was blinded by light. Hands reached for her, efficiently pinning her face down into the fetid carpeting. He tore the tape off her mouth.

"Kill me like the animal you are," she hissed, her swollen tongue barely able to form words.

He stroked her matted hair from her hot cheek. When he tenderly said, "I love you, Clarice," she knew that he had to kill her.

"Look at me," she demanded. "Look at me when you do it."

The pressure lessened just enough to roll her onto her back. High above in the glaring blue sky, buzzards circled.

The blue was his eyes, bright enough to light the night. His sure fingers undid her shirt buttons. Yes, he'd want to watch her bare flesh part with his knife's blade. But it was his lips that pressed between her breasts, finding her heartbeat, a seismic tremor that only he could read. Still, her breath caught in her throat, holding her on the edge of death.

"Clarice," he whispered, rocking her in a loose embrace.

"I'll be okay," she reassured him.

His chuckle was rough. "My tough little girl," he murmured, before following the flutters of her breathing, chasing them under her rib cage, and capturing the deep intakes at her navel.

As she pulled herself from the river, the water coursed off her strong limbs. Standing over his reclining body, she wrung out her hair and flipped it back.

"Any bites?" she asked, nodding toward his fishing pole.

His gaze remained focused on the swirling waters marking from where she'd risen. "No," he said, his voice distant.

The tone made her angry. He thought that he could remain in complete control. She'd learned by now that he was just a man after all, neither monster or mastermind. A beating heart, red blood...both of which could be directed to a base need.

She tugged her clinging shirt off and her breasts swung free. Still no reaction, even as she dropped the shirt by his feet.

"I never believed you were a coward," she taunted, her hands at her shorts' waistband.

"Actually, I'm showing an amazing amount of bravery at the moment," he said as he flicked the pole, causing the line to jerk his bait below the dark surface.

She only barked a laugh as her shorts and panties dropped. Stepping forward, she trapped him against the tree. "Yeah, you're a regular Sergeant York," she sneered.

"Who's he?" Lecter asked, finally glancing up.

"A man of these hills with a noble heart and very good aim."

His thumb circled her kneecap. "A regular deadeye?"

"And a true man of God." It was her turn to look out across the dappled river. A water moccasin wound through the current. His long brown body made its own lazy path in the murky waters.

"I will worship..." The doctor drew her closer. Now she was the reluctant one. "At my own altar."

"Don't."

His mouth was at her navel, then lapping lower. "Don't what?" he murmured across her goose-pimpled skin.

"Don't be reverent. You know I hate that."

"What do you want then?"

"Just treat me like a woman." She took another step, pressing into his ministrations, Artemis coming down from her pedestal for her acolyte.

"That's impossible to define though, my dear," he said with his maddening calmness. "One man's woman is another's whore, one man's saint is another's-"

She had to shut him up. Grasping the tree's trunk, she ground into his mouth, stopping his speech if not his tongue.

"Just a woman," she choked out. "I'm just a woman. And you need me-" she said with wonder, even as she was the one who needed him desperately-needed him to never stop, to keep doing that, to finally consume her as he'd wished from the first moment that he'd seen her.

They were being watched; she could sense eyes somewhere in the trees, observing this sinful act. On the Lord's day, she was wallowing like a beast with a demon-

The bark was smooth beneath her flushed cheek, its scent wild and deep, something she'd missed for so many years working and living in stale concrete boxes.

Sun and mud and birch sap were her new world, and her pulse pounding behind her fluttering eyelids. The river's course was the sound of her man's satisfied lapping. This was a dawn and a dusk at the same moment.

"Better," Lecter said with deep joy, rising over her, his arms and chest pale blue in the dim bedroom.

She didn't answer, her face turned into the pillow, riding the currents pushing her back to the surface.

Still dressed, Lecter lowered himself onto the bed in the sleeping porch. The end of his cigar hung from his slack hand and he stared up at the ceiling, wondering if sleep would come yet.

"Where did you go?" she asked from the doorway.

"For some air." He took another deep drag from his cigar.

"It's dark in the woods."

It was dark on the porch as well. As she moved toward him, her satin robe shimmered like moonlight on the water. It caught the attention of moths and they were drawn to the screens.

She froze, watching the insects batter against the wire, their delicate wings shredding like paper.

"I'm not afraid of the dark," he said, breaking into her thoughts.

She smiled. "No, you are not."

"You don't have to be. I'm here."

He said this sincerely, but she laughed anyway. Sitting beside him, she smiled again. "It's not the dark that frightens folks, it's what hides in it. And you're one of those monsters."

Even as she said this, her hand rested on his thigh. He found himself staring at it, how the slender pale fingers curled around his limb.

"Are you ever truly afraid, Doctor?"

"Do you want me to be?"

"Perhaps," she murmured.

"What shall I fear for you?" he asked. As she shifted, her gown fell open. Her skin captured the moonlight. The madness of the moonraker entered his mind, trying to scoop treasures from deep waters.

Her smile was self-deprecating. Her answer was her hand on his fly and her mouth covering his. Her skin still smelled of mint and lemon, her breath held whiskey vapor. But her drunken languidness was gone.

Her robe slid free, the clouds drifting from the face of the moon. She rose above him, brushing his shirt loose. A breeze finally came up in the humid night but they remained flushed and heated.

He was terrified in a sudden moment. Pinned down, held in her grip and deafened by his thundering heart-no, a storm was rising. Rain urgently beat on the tin roof, then settled to gentle sighs waving over in time with their bodies. And he was still afraid. The fear tightened every muscle, locked his vision on her face, kept him from speaking.

Her brow furrowed as she touched his rigid features. She rolled off him.

"Don't-" he said, fumbling for her in the dark.

Her smile was just a sliver of the moon now. "It's okay. I understand." It was her voice, but with the clipped tones of a jailer. "I feel the same way. It's our first time...To really feel something with another person-"

"I ask that you not analyse us," he growled, fumbling for the blankets in their dark bedroom. "Now is not the time for therapy."

Her hum was just as distant. "You can speak like a poet. But words and actions are different."

He had to be get away. Struggling from the bed, he stormed to the window. The prairie rolled away from their new house, glistening silver strands under the full moon. The storm had passed just as quickly as it had risen and washed the grassland clean.

The buzzing in his head was a thousand bees swarming around his body. She was there again, turning him from the window and into the bright summer day, with the peach blossoms drifting around them, the bees' whirling wings catching the petals.

He didn't fear being stung but his skin danced under their light touch until it was too hot to feel anything so delicate. Her mouth was much more insistent, demanding obedience to its pull. She was the queen and he the drone. They were wrapped in the hive, the whir of the wings deafening him to even his own cries, and then the honey flowed free.

"Come back to bed," she urged him as she stood. "Come to bed."

The sheets were blissfully cool on his still thrumming body but he had to hold her. She'd found yet another way to keep him at bay. As he slipped into sleep, he was thankful that at least she wasn't leaving him alone in the bed.

The hotel room's connecting door wasn't locked but he knew nothing but danger lay on the other side. He opened it slowly, She had just finished undressing and turned to face him. She did not cover her nudity. He looked at her bare breasts, her narrow waist, the shadow between her thighs.

She waited for his inspection to end. "I thought you gave me your answer in the hall."

"I've had time to think." His tie sliding through his shirt collar had the low hiss of a snake in grass.

She gave a sharp nod in compliance and then turned her back to him.

His breath caught. Her squared shoulders, her finely tuned spine, the swell of her buttocks, the strength quivering in her hips... She gave it all to him. His lips found her shoulder blades, hard-edged bones to be chewed and sucked dry.

She nudged his pelvis in a slow circle, drawing him into her pyre. Leaning on the dresser, she remained at his bidding and the fear was back. He understood her submission was a trap from which he may never escape.

There was no refusal for him; he fell into the ring of fire. As if reading his mind, her rusty chuckle, jarred by his thrusts, mocked him. "It'll be all right," she promised and he could barely breathe at the terror.

Her face in the mirror reflected his fear and he could finally feel release from their mutual disquiet. His hands smoothed her long back muscles as she undulated like a galloping deer. Her sleek neck bent to take his kisses.

It was in a kiss that he tasted her climax and her heat burned his tongue. Nestling his forehead at the back of her head, he rode his own.

Staggering to the bed, he fell onto his back. Stars danced before his eyes; the last bees looking for their shattered hive.

Her cool hand stroked his sweat-soaked chest, worrying at his sternum with the twist of her fingernail. It was replaced by the tip of a fine blade dipping into his skin, finding the way between the cartilage and muscle until his heart was exposed.

"Thank you, my love," he whispered against her temple as her fingers tightened around his beating heart.

Her hand traced lazy patterns on his chest and she laughed into the crook of his neck. "Thank you?"

"Yes."

"Well I guess I'll say thank you too then," she said dryly and pushed back her tangled hair.

"You're welcome." The stars before his vision had set, replaced by the coming dawn.

x

After dressing in the morning, he found Clarice in the barn, crouched by the pen holding a small cluster of sheep. The horses she had already purchased nickered at Lecter as he passed, expecting their morning hay but he ignored them as she had.

The ranch had come with the sheep and the lambs had been born soon after they'd moved in. Clarice cared for them with a disturbing detachment, a stiffness to her back suggesting she was waiting for the doctor to say something...

_"I'd like lamb chops tonight,"_ she expected to hear. His test-

One lamb was suckling on her fingertip. He stood behind her and cupped her head with his large palm. Her hand eased along the lamb's skull, taking a moment to stroke its floppy ear. Her strong fingers wrapped around the small animal's neck.

"No."

"It's no big deal," she murmured. "It doesn't matter anymore. It's just a farm animal. He'll be slaughtered and another will be born to replace him."

"Trying to prove you're strong, so strong that you can crush the past with one hand-I don't need that from you. You've given me everything, my dear..."

The lamb bleated as her grip tightened. "Perhaps I'm in the mood for chops myself-"

He closed his hand around her wrist. "I've bought some pork chops. I'll do them for dinner."

Her laugh echoed in the silent barn. He wrapped his arms around her and tugged her away from the pen. The lamb scampered back to his mother.

"Come inside, darling. I'll make you breakfast first."

She stood, staggering a bit and he steadied her.

"Make me some co'n bread?"

They ambled down the barn aisle arm in arm. She reached out to stroke the seeking nose of her new mare as they passed her stall.

"Please, do not ask such things of me," he protested, relieved for the moment to have gone. "I can only do so much."

When they passed through the heavy barn door, they stopped, stunned by the bright pink and blue dawn.

"It's a new day," she said, saying what he thinking.

She looked up at him, illuminated by the morning light. Full white beard, his hair long enough to brush the collar of his canvas work jacket. He'd already learned to stand with a bit of a slouch and to keep his large hands in his pockets.

Henry McGraw and his wife Lillian had been born, their final roles.

~End


End file.
